Coaching as a Change Management Tool
Organisational change is now a continuous presence in the lives of most working people. Often change addresses the structures, processes and profitability of a company, but sidelines the key resource – the employees. This case study shows how one company employed coaching as part of its change management programme, what coaching brought to the programme and its impact on the individuals involved.

AMP – Financial Services Provider
AMP is a major international financial services organisation headquartered in Australia. In the UK, the company has acquired several household name insurance and financial services companies over several years, including Pearl Assurance, London Life, NPI and Henderson Global Investors.

Alignment of Support Functions
The acquisition of these different companies meant that AMP in the UK was a growing but loose federation of businesses. In order to support the company’s strategic structure, AMP decided to make the HR function common to all divisions. This decision represented a major upheaval across the company resulting in a new, shared HR structure.

Management of Change
Despite AMP’s best efforts to make the process transparent, reactions to change were not unusual: fear, resentment, anger and demotivation. So the company included a vital element within its change management programme: coaching. AMP selected People Work Best to provide the coaching to all affected HR staff as an optional, personal and completely confidential service. The company believed that a constructive one-to-one conversation with a trained, objective professional about their feelings, their options and their future was essential for some members of staff. People Work Best’s independent status was important in this respect, as was their ability to help the person arrive at a positive outcome. It also helped AMP create the right atmosphere for change.

Coaching fills a void
One hundred of the 250 employees affected had one or more coaching sessions which allowed them to talk about the changes and to get their own options and priorities clear in their minds. People Work Best’s coaching team were able to listen constructively and help them move forward, whether they chose to stay at AMP or to leave.

The coaches offered a range of services, from very practical assistance with CVs and interview techniques, through to emotional support (confronting cynicism, changing attitudes, building self-confidence) and action – making a decision and following it through.

Users and managers of the service were enthusiastic. One HR manager comments: ‘Having an independent coach on call helped me as a manager. It meant that my staff had an extra outlet and support whenever they needed it, which was something I couldn’t have supplied in the same way. It clearly made them feel special, which was important in a time when jobs were disappearing, and it helped them grow as individuals. Even those who knew that they would have no job at the end of the process benefited. They became positive about the change, and the options available to them.’

Is coaching an effective change management tool?
Although confidentiality meant that individuals’ progress could not be tracked, the feedback on trends (such as employees’ feelings on a certain issue or the need for clarification on others) proved useful to AMP and enabled a modification of the change programme overall, providing a model which can be used for future changes.

In summary, the coaching led to higher productivity, proved vital to line managers and helped to disperse some of the acrimony that can build up around any change process. It also provided useful feedback to the change management team and will definitely be considered for inclusion in any future change management programme.

back to top